27 Nov. 45
by a Treaty of Alliance between
Czechoslovakia and the Soviet Union exactly parallel in form. In
accordance with the fundamental right of a nation to secure its
frontiers and ensure its possibilities of defense, the German
Government has today restored the full and unrestricted sovereignty
of Germany in the demilitarized zone of the Rhineland."
The whole matter of the German reoccupation of the demilitarized
zone of the Rhineland caused extensive international repercussions
and study. As a result of the protests lodged with the League of
Nations, the Council of the League made an investigation and
announced the following finding, of which I ask the Tribunal to take
judicial notice, as being carried in the League of Nations Monthly
Summary, March 1936, Volume 16, Page 78; and it is also quoted in
an article by Quincy Wright, in the American Journal of
International Law, Page 487, 1936.
The finding is this:
"That the German Government has
committed a breach of Article 43 of the Treaty of Versailles by
causing, on March 7, 1936, military forces to enter and establish
themselves in the demilitarized zone referred to, in Article 42 and
the following articles of that Treaty, and in the Treaty of
Locarno."
At the same time, on 7 March 1936, as the Germans reoccupied the
Rhineland in flagrant violation of the Versailles and Locarno
Treaties, they again tried to allay the fears of other European
powers and lead them into a false sense of security by announcing to
the world: "We have no territorial demands to make in
Europe."
That appears in this same speech of Hitler's, which I have
offered in evidence as Exhibit USA-56, which is Document 2289-PS. The
language will be found on Page 6, Column 1:
"We have no territorial claims to
make in Europe. We know above all that all the tensions resulting
either from false territorial settlements or from the disproportion
of the numbers of inhabitants to their living spaces cannot, in
Europe, be solved by war."
Most of the acts set forth in the paragraph of the Indictment
which I have been discussing, I think do not need judicial proof
because they are historical facts. We have been able to bring you a
number of interesting documents illuminating that history. The
existence of prior plans and preparations is indisputable from the
very nature of things. The method and sequence of these plans and
their accomplishment are clearly indicative of the progressing and
increasingly aggressive character of the Nazi objectives, inter-